Successful fat loss improves your stress response ….

Today's post: Monday, 7-30-2007

Successful fat loss improves your stress response. Even better, changing the way you eat can do both.

I found this in today’s Early to Rise for Monday, 7-30-2007.

(My comments follow the article. Read those for more tips on how to lose fat & improve your stress response.)

(This article appears courtesy of Early To Rise, the Internet’s most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/..)

“How to Control a Silent Killer

By Craig Ballantyne

If you're unhealthily overweight, you probably know it. You also know if you have unhealthy habits, like smoking or excessive drinking. And if you're not as fit as you should be, you probably recognize that too. But high blood pressure - the silent killer that can lead directly to heart attacks and death - goes unnoticed every day.

Australian researchers have found an easy way to control this silent killer.

The researchers had three groups of men complete a mental stress test before and after a 12-week diet program. One group of men changed nothing in their diets, another group ate a diet high in fruits and vegetables and low in dairy products, and a third group ate a low-fat diet. By the end of 12 weeks, both groups that had changed their diets lost an average of nine pounds, while the control group remained at about the same weight.

The subjects who lost weight also reduced their resting systolic blood pressure (the higher number in the normal 120 over 80 blood pressure reading).

Furthermore, in the groups that had changed their diets, blood pressure returned to normal six minutes faster after the stress tests than in the control group.

The scientists concluded that weight loss helps men control their blood pressure better during times of stress, which is likely to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease in the long term. So if you have high blood pressure, add more fruits and vegetables to your diet and lose weight. And if you don't know what your blood pressure is, get it checked immediately.”

My comments:

1. This improved stress relief also tends to prevent higher future blood pressure readings. And, the added fiber, potassium & magnesium in the added fruits and vegetables also help lower high blood pressure & prevent higher future blood pressure readings.

Second, regular vigorous exercise where you rest a short while afterwards, also allows you to recover from stress more quickly. As you become fit, your recovery time gets faster. Even better, it takes more to create a higher pulse rate.

Both these effects also tend to lower high blood pressure & prevent higher future blood pressure readings.

And, since regular exercise, particularly this kind of vigorous cardio & this kind of strength training, also trim off excess bodyfat, by both eating more vegetables & eating less unhealthful fats AND doing this kind of exercise cuts you can cut more fat from your body which lowers blood pressure more & improves your stress response more.

So, for good stress response & getting rid of excess fat, eat right & exercise regularly.

You’ll also have lower & healthier blood pressure readings.

2. Recent stories report that having fat friends tends to make you fat & having trim friends tends to make you lean.

Even better, if you have a friend who successfully loses fat & stays your friend, you are much more likely to lose fat too.

So, make friends with lean people who eat right & exercise. Spend more time with them than with your fat friends if you can. And, once you succeed, simply let your fatter friends know you have done so.

This research suggests that you don’t need to try to sell them on getting leaner. All you have to do is keep improving yourself & let them know. Chances are they will follow you example.

3. Stay away from both regular & diet soft drinks.

Drinking more than one or two soft drinks a month, is a proven way to get fat.

If you drink regular soft drinks, you take in lots more calories & your body registers NONE of them, so you don’t eat less of everything else to compensate.

Oddly, regular drinking of diet soft drinks produces an almost identical effect research shows.

And, research released just as few days ago says the health effects of drinking diet soft drinks regularly is also as bad for your heart.

One theory explains this by saying that when your body gets the sweet taste but no sugar rush, you then overeat other things which do produce a sugar rush to compensate.

The second theory points out that the artificial sweeteners in diet soft drinks cause your metabolism to function in unhealthy ways.

And, the foods people often eat with both kinds of soft drinks tend to be high in refined grains, grain fed meat, & transfats.

So, if you want to stop being fat or avoid it and you want to stay healthy, it will also help enormously if you stop drinking soft drinks.

In fact, if you have been drinking soft drinks regularly, switching to water, tea, or even coffee, can literally help you lose enough fat to be 10 percent lighter. And, the incredible thing is, it won’t make you any hungrier.